


Begin As You Mean to Go On

by romanticalgirl



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-20
Updated: 2015-07-20
Packaged: 2018-04-10 08:57:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4385717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romanticalgirl/pseuds/romanticalgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘i kissed the wrong person on news years’ au - um, well, sort of. Okay, that's what it was SUPPOSED to be</p>
            </blockquote>





	Begin As You Mean to Go On

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be happy and gleeful and ridiculous. Yeah. Well.

There is a very distinct possibility Ian is drunk.

He would venture to say that the possibility is more of a probability. Or a certainty. 

Because he is drunk.

Very, very, very drunk.

But it’s new year’s eve, which means it’s a law to get drunk or something. And the party pretty much consists of alcohol, making out, yelling, and probably sex in the back room. He’s not sure why he’s here. He’s put the Fairy Tail behind him, but Fiona’s with Gus, Vee, Kev, Liam and the twins. Lip’s off with his professor at some swanky-ass party. Debbie’s with a group of her friends, Carl’s still in juvie.

And Ian would rather be alone in a crowd than alone in his room or watching people in love feel sorry for him. 

At least the turnover rate at the gay clubs is quick enough that no one here knows him. Of course, he was better known at the Fairy Tail than at the White Swallow, but it’s not like the clientele and the dancers are much different.

He’s different. Paler. Thinner. In a fit of trying to be someone else, he’d raked black streaks through his hair. It hadn’t changed him. He was still himself, wavering between taking his meds and flushing them, between manic and depressed and that thin, teetering strip of in-between.

The strobe lights start flashing at 30 seconds to midnight and people start counting. Ian supposes it’s so partners – in life or for the night – can find each other. It gives him a headache and he realizes he’s been wrong. He doesn’t want to be alone in a crowd or alone with people who pity him. He just wants to be alone. He heads for the door and right as Auld Lang Syne starts playing, someone grabs him, spins him around and kisses him hard and hungry and deep. Ian tries to remember the last time someone kissed him, and then he promptly tries to forget, because it was Mickey.

Everything was Mickey.

“Happy new year, Mark.”

Ian’s whole world shifts two feet to the left, and he feels his knees shake. He knows that voice. He knows that soft, silky, sound. He knows the low, sultry tenor of it. “Not...” Ian swallows hard, his throat too dry to get beyond that.

“Shit, dude. I just...” Mickey seems to focus, to sober up as he looks at Ian. “Gallagher.” He laughs incredulously. “Holy fuck. Gallagher.”

“Mick.”

Mickey laughs, and it’s almost a giggle. He’s drunk. Probably as drunk as Ian is. Was. “Shit. I didn’t even recognize you. Dark hair. You look like Mark from behind.” 

“Who...who’s Mark?”

“Boyfriend.”

Something unwelcome and unwarranted twists in Ian’s chest. “Oh.”

“Dunno where he went though.” Mickey’s eyes are opening raking over Ian. “You look like shit, man.” He pokes Ian in the stomach. “Letting yourself go.”

“Fuck you.” It’s so easy to fall back into this. To look at Mickey and tease. “Look at you. You look all spiffed up. Respectable.” He reaches out and straightens Mickey’s collar. “Business man.”

“Fuck that. Mark said we were going to a party. Didn’t tell me it was here.” He hasn’t looked away from Ian, his eyes moving to different parts of him and lingering like he’s memorizing something. 

“Nah. Bet all the guys are hitting on you.”

“Have you seen some of the dudes on display? Nobody’s fucking hitting on me. I’m overdressed for this crowd.”

Ian looks around at the crowd all of whom are in various states of undress. “True. The overdressed part. I refuse to believe the other.” He tries to find the guy who must be Mark. The guy Mickey came to the party with. 

Mickey’s boyfriend.

“Look out there. Old bastards with money and hot young things. Trust me, ain’t nobody looking at me like I’m a party favor.” He shrugs. “Not a big deal. Already got someone to go home with, right?” He looks at Ian for a brief moment then glances around. “What about you?”

“What about me what?”

“Who are you here with? Or planning to go home with?”

 _you_ , Ian’s brain shouts even though it has no right to. Of course, his brain is jacked anyway. Ian just shrugs. “Nobody.”

“Nobody?” Mickey raises his eyebrow in disbelief. “Bullshit. I’m surprised you don’t have a fucking line next to you. Like that fucking speed dating.”

“I should let you go find your boyfriend.” The word almost sticks in his throat, but he manages to get it out. “Probably wondering where you were at midnight.”

“Which midnight was that one?”

“Ours.” 

“Oh. Shit.” Mickey laughs. Ian’s struck by how happy he looks. Ian did the right thing when he told Mickey to go. He never looked like that with Ian. “Whoops.”

“You see him?”

Mickey turns around and steps back, body too close to Ian’s for Ian’s comfort. He can feel his cock stirring. “Don’t see him.” Mickey tilts his head and Ian runs his tongue along the top of his teeth and then bites the tip of it hard. Mickey turns around to face Ian, too close for comfort, not close enough. “It’s loud in here. You hungry?”

“What about your boyfriend?”

Mickey pulls out his phone and shoots a text, apparently to Mark. “Ready?”

“He won’t care?”

“Told him where I’d be.” Mickey starts for the club entrance and Ian takes another look around, just to make sure some pissed off guy wasn’t going to follow them out of the club and beat the shit out of Ian for hanging out with his boyfriend.

There’s a Denny’s down the street and Mickey waits just inside for Ian. It’s fucking freezing outside, and it feels worse after the warmth of the club, but the restaurant is warm and Ian steps closer to Mickey as some other people follow them in. Mickey smiles up at Ian and whatever had been cold warms up immediately.

They get seated and Mickey orders two of their biggest stacks of pancakes then motions to Ian to order. Ian doesn’t have much appetite right now, stomach unstable from the change in pills. He’s on a dose way too low for what’s wrong with him, but it appeases people like his family who are afraid he’s going to lose his shit. Again.

He orders a small stack and Mickey raises an eyebrow at him. Ian just shrugs. “Hot maple syrup,” Mickey hollers at the waiter as he walks away. “I want it hot.”

The waiter flips him off and Mickey grins, satisfied. Ian looks Mickey over, differently than he had in the club. Observing more than drinking him in. “So what have you been up to?”

“Can’t laugh.”

Ian holds up his middle finger. “Scout’s honor.”

Mickey leans in and Ian gets a whiff of soap and sweat. “Gone straight.”

Ian blinks at him. “We were just in a gay club talking about your boyfriend. That is the weirdest definition of ‘straight’ I’ve ever fucking heard.”

“Fuck you,” Mickey laughs. “Work-wise. Some fucking idiot actually hired me.”

“That’s great. Doing what?”

Mickey grins like a fucking maniac. “Managing towel-head’s store.”

Ian stares at him and then cracks up. “Are you fucking serious?”

“Yup. Went in there and Linda was working and she just pointed at me and told me to show up the next day and if I stole anything I’d be dead.”

“You’ve got to be kidding. Tell me you’re kidding.”

“No shit, man. She’s got three fucking kids and she’s exhausted all the time and Kash doesn’t send her money or fuck all, so she needs help. Guess she figured I was the only one she wouldn’t have to train and I’d fuck up anyone who tried to shoplift.” He smiles at Ian and it hurts how genuine it is. 

“That’s really great, Mick.”

Mickey’s expression changes slightly and Ian curses himself for using the nickname. “Still have to get Svetlana money, send Mandy some. Got rid of the rat-trap of a house. Figured what the fuck do I give about gentrification, right? Not like living there ever did anything for me. Linda let me turn the upstairs into an apartment. Living over the shop now like a fucking adult or something.”

“Wow.” Ian stops talking as the pancakes arrive, eating quietly. Mickey pours hot syrup over the first stack and moans at his first bite. Ian’s dick quivers again, but he stares at his food instead of watching Mickey’s mouth slick with syrup, Mickey’s throat as he swallows. “Guess it was a good thing then.”

“What’s that?” Mickey pushes another bite four pancakes deep into his mouth.

“Me telling you to go.”

Mickey freezes for a moment and then his fork impales the table right next to Ian’s wrist. When Ian looks up with wide eyes, Mickey looks furious. He leans in, his voice a low hiss. “Don’t even fucking say that. Don’t _ever_ say that. You don’t fucking know what’s good for me. You don’t fucking know what I went through to get here. To fucking manage to breathe. To be able to see you and not fall the fuck apart. I don’t know if that’s what it was for you, but for me it wasn’t just going. It was being fucking destroyed. It was putting myself on the line without realizing it was the fucking firing line and you were holding the rifle, Mr. Dead Shot. So fuck you.” 

“So why are we here?” Ian snaps. He’s hurt and upset with himself. Hates himself. “Prove you could do it?”

Mickey laughs sadly. “No. I just couldn’t resist.” He rubs his palm over his face. “I saw you in that fucking club and I was just going to try to talk to you. But...but then the fucking countdown started and...And I was going to turn you around and kiss you, say goodbye and get the fuck out of there. Just have a chance to say goodbye. But nothing about you seems to go right for me. So I...” Mickey rubs his eyes this time with one fist. He dips his finger in his syrup and sucks it off. 

Ian finishes his pancakes in silence and then steals one from the top of Mickey’s second stack. Mickey’s still looking down at his plate, but Ian can see his eyebrows go up. “Is there really a Mark?”

Mickey sniffs. “There was. For a while.”

“Why were you there tonight?”

“You really want to know?” Mickey’s voice is hard, self-deprecating. Like he’s ready for Ian to make a joke. 

Ian nods. “Yeah.”

“I didn’t want to start the new year off alone. Figured getting fucked was better than being fucked. Got no one else around. Might as well find someone else who’s lonely.”

“I’m sorry if I ruined your chances.”

“Think I did what I set out to do.” Mickey shrugs, looking at Ian knowingly as he takes another bite. “You look lonely too.”


End file.
